Underutilisation of allocations by Labour Ministry for its schemes

March 14, 2023

Context:

The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Labour has criticized the Union Labour Ministry for underutilization of funds allocated for its various schemes.

Observations of Committee’s report

As of February 2023, a scheme wise analysis of fund utilization for fiscal year 2022-23 showed that only two schemes, Employee’s Pension Scheme (EPS) and National Career Services (NCS), had spent 90% of the revised estimate (RE) provision.
- In contrast, most other schemes had substantially lower utilization percentages.
In case of Pradhan Mantri Shram Yogi Maandhan, National Database of Unorganised Workers, Labour Welfare Schemes and Rehabilitation of Bonded Labour, the utilisation recorded has been 26.66%, 30.02%, 30.63% and 48.30%, respectively vis-à-vis the Budget provisioning.
The gross underutilisation of the funds has impacted the performance of certain schemes “thereby defeating the laudable intent of these schemes in benefiting the targeted groups”.
The committee asked the Ministry to leverage their spending pattern on such schemes where the utilisation percentage is not up to the mark so as to ensure optimal achievement of the 2022-23 23 allocations by the close of the Financial Year 2022-23.

Source: The Hindu